The wait is over! Dive Babe is here!

I know. It’s been a while since I released anything new. Life happens. And it really happened in 2020. I could have done with a little less of that. So back to the good news. My new release Dive Babe is available for pre-order on Amazon. If you’re not a kindle reader, don’t worry. It will be on the other major sites as well but, to the best of my knowledge, none of those sites have a pre-order program.

Strictly speaking, Dive Babe isn’t part of the McKnight series, but it is set in that world, so you’ll recognize a number of the characters. Dive Babe is the first of a new series that I’m calling The McKnight Friends and Extended Family and focuses on Rachel McKnight’s best friend and sister-in-law, Claudia MacAllister.

An interesting tidbit about this story. My original intent was to write a longish short story, but there was more story in the story and it became a novelette. And I was having so much fun writing it that before I knew it, it was a novella. Then things got really out of hand, and it turned into a full-length novel.
As far as marriage goes, Claudia MacAllister has been there, done that, has vowed never to do it again. But she’s having trouble convincing the stalker with a diamond ring in his pocket. What she needs is someone who looks like he’s her fella but who doesn’t make her heart go pitter-patter. Ex-navy SEAL Joe Sweeney is the man for the job. So what if her heart pitter-pats a little—okay, so it pitter-pats a lot—but that’s manageable because he’s both gay and taken.

Or is he?


Intrigued?

I hope so.

I do like to give my regular readers a break as a way of thanking them for being fans, so if you pre-order or buy within the first seven days after the release, the price will be $2.99. After that, it will go up to $3.99.

So when will the book you actually be able to read Dive Babe? I wish I had a solid answer for that question. It’s currently scheduled for release on January 24, 2021. The reason for the long lead time is that the last major step in the process is to have my line editor look at the manuscript. Normally, I could anticipate how long that would take, but 2020 has been a year of upheaval for my editor too. She just moved from Washington state to upstate New York. When I contacted her, she’d literally been at her new home for an hour and a half and was still waiting for her household goods to arrive. Given all that, I decided it was better to push the release date out further than I’d like to because I figure it’s better to give my readers the happy surprise of an earlier than anticipated release than the to disappoint them with a longer than expected delay. (Presuming any one will invest that much emotionally in one of my books.) So that’s the long answer. The short answer is January 24th, t the latest. I don’t like to be a nag, but because the release date isn’t firm, when it does release on Amazon (and the other major sites), I’ll send a nudge to remind to you.

I do hope you’ll like reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Thursday Writing Quote ~ King

The most important things to remember about back story are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn’t very interesting. Stick to the parts that are, and don’t get carried away with the rest. Long life stories are best received in bars, and only then an hour or so before closing time, and if you are buying ~ Stephen King

Nuggets for November

Looking for slang or jargon? Or maybe alternatives for cuss words? This is a very useful post for the "wordy" in all writers.
http://annerallen.com/slang-jargon-insider-lingo-11-ways-to-find/

A great post about blurb writing
http://www.adazing.com/the-perfect-blurb/

Do you need an editor? And what kind of editor?
http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2016/11/no-you-dont-need-to-pay-for-a-copy-edit-except-when-you-do.html

A thought provoking article about how to make the unexpected twist believable
http://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/write-unexpected-story-events/

In defense of to-be verbs
http://annerallen.com/should-you-eliminate-was-from-your/ 

marketing for the holidays
https://www.writtenwordmedia.com/2016/10/25/book-promotion-for-holiday/